In the Name of Science
by evenflo78
Summary: Post Thor:TDW He did almost die saving her life, so Jane takes Loki into her home, such that it is, when Odin banishes him from Asgard. What could possibly go wrong? Curiosity is Jane's middle name, and Loki is a well of knowledge. That is if he'll answer her endless questions with anything resembling honesty. Eventual Lokane with mild angst.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Okay, so this is a new fandom for me, and after a reaaaally long hiatus from the fanfic world, no less, but I hope you enjoy what I have planned. Just an FYI; these are little chapters, though they may get longer as I get back into the swing of writing. Who knows? This'll be as much about practice as it is fun for me.**

**Reviews are encouragement, even the constructive kind, and are definitely appreciated. However, I don't expect or demand them. If you have the time, or feel so inclined, I would love to hear what you think. Thank you in advance.**

**Disclaimer: I've never, nor will I ever, made any money off these characters. They are not mine. I've just been bewitched by Loki. How can you not be?**

**/*/*/*/**

It shouldn't have been as much of a surprise to her as it was. When Thor came to her with his request – demand, really (Because when you're The God of Thunder, do you ever honestly make a request?) – she was left speechless.

For all of three seconds. "You want me to _what_?"

"Please, Jane."

Did saying please make it a request? Jane didn't think so and was already shaking her head. "Aren't there more," she waved her hands around, "qualified people to handle that?" Turning her back on him, she grabbed her, now-cold, cup of coffee. "People, perhaps, _trained_ to deal with mischievous Gods hell bent on conquering...whatever the heck it is they like to conquer?"

She was a scientist, for crying out loud. Strength of mind did not equal to strength of muscle. And sociopathic Asgardians-slash-Jotuns would require at least some form of physical restraint or force at some time or another, logic told her.

It was a mistake to look at him, Jane knew, but she did it anyway.

"They mustn't know," he implored, stepping towards her. And there they were: puppy-dog eyes, blue as the sky they ruled, and sad as a desert-day is long. "S.H.I.E.L.D believes him –"

"Dead," she finished, her will caving. "I know." She set her mug down again, lost cause that it was. That _she_ was. "But why me?"

"I trust you, Lady Jane, like no other," Thor replied, crushing her resolve with words weighing on her as heavily as Mjölnir. "And, despite all he has done in the past, he is ever my brother."

Which was exactly why she'd agreed in the end. She owed Thor. He'd saved her life, more than once. Though perhaps she had saved his too, in more ways than one, which should have balanced the scales.

But Loki? Well, he'd saved her life too. And Thor's. So she supposed, in some round-about way, in a world where you forgot he'd once tried to destroy human-kind – herself included – she did kind of owe him for nearly dying to save the both of them.

Right?

Maybe.

She wasn't so sure, but she'd promised, and it was too late to go back now. As she sat waiting for the inevitable storm of their arrival, now that the bridge between worlds had been repaired, she pondered Odin's reasoning.

Why here, of all places?

What was it about earth – Midgard, she corrected with a mental snort – and his supposed forms of punishment for misbehaving gods of Asgard? First Thor, and now Loki. Was it because humans – Midgardians, whatever – were deemed lesser beings, and therefore became the equivalent of being in the metaphorical doghouse to the precious All-Father, Odin?

She'd met the man himself, so she knew from experience just how little he'd thought of her. Even with the Aether a dark, living thing in her blood, he'd looked at her as though she were mud on his royal boot. So, yes, she could logically see that being his reason for banishing them to earth.

She should have been offended, but for whatever reason she wasn't.

It did make her wonder though.

At any given time, how many naughty aliens were left bereft of their home planet (Realm?) and sent to earth to reevaluate their behavior? More than she knew of, most likely, given Odin's track record in only the past few years. Jane laughed out loud, the imposing image of Volstagg flashing in her mind. He'd stick out like a sore thumb, and he was at least human-_like_.

How many other races were out there in the universe? How did they manage to blend in human society when they were bad, little boys and girls? Or was that truly where stories of little green men had come from? It made her question books of fiction and fabled tales she'd read throughout her life. Were fairies real? Trolls? Elves most certainly were, she acknowledged with a shudder.

Jane shook her head. As much knowledge as she'd gathered in her short life, there was so much more she didn't know. The world was a far vaster place than even _she_ could fathom theories for, and it left her feeling as small and miniscule as the stars above her.

There were beings out there, Jane thought as the sky lit up with lightening, that lived for thousands upon thousands of years. Thousands of years worth of knowledge, just waiting to be gleaned by anyone brave enough to ask questions. And Jane was nothing if not the curiosity that killed the cat.

She smiled as she stood, squaring her shoulders and looking off into the storm brewing in the distance.

Lightening brought thunder.

And thunder meant Thor.

So what if Loki was a veritable mad man? With a dark sort of humor, Jane realized, she had enough questions to drive a mad man sane, and Loki could possibly answer them. If he was left in her charge, for only Odin knew how long, she'd be damned if she didn't get something out of it. Perhaps babysitting the God of Mischief wouldn't be so terrible after all.

**To Be Continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Welcome back. Updates won't always come this quickly, but I'm writing and it's been months since I've written anything longer than a text message, so I am gonna go with it while it lasts.**

**Thanks for the reviews and alerts/favorites. I'm excited that you want to come on this journey with me! **

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. But I like playing with them.**

**/*/*/*/**

Awkward was the best word Jane could come up with to describe the interaction between Loki and herself in the fifteen minutes following Thor's departure.

Thor, being Thor, hadn't stayed long. She'd expected that, really; he did have soon-to-be-King'ly things to do in all parts of the universe, not just earth. But she _had_ expected him to stay longer than seven minutes and forty-three seconds.

"I really must depart," he'd said. Seven minutes and forty-five seconds, was that really all the time she was worth? "Repairs have only just begun on the palace – "

"Of course," she'd interrupted, feeling horribly selfish considering all the destruction Asgard had recently suffered. Greenwich was all but smashed, she didn't say aloud. "Go. We'll be..." Fine, she'd wanted to say, but frowned instead, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Is he really?"

"Human?" Thor had finished with a nod. "Aye. As much as any of us can be, that is." He'd laid a heavy arm around her shoulders, and the weight felt solid and real. Secure. "Father stripped him of all his magic. He's harmless."

Jane doubted that, her eyes having strayed warily to where she could just make out the silhouette of Loki in her living room window. Her life was so surreal, now, it seemed. Why had she agreed to this again?

"More or less," Thor added after seeing her expression. "I will be back," he'd vowed, grasping her shoulders and turning her to face him. "This, I promise."

And, as she'd met his stormy eyes, she knew it to be truth. If not for Jane, some small part of her mind whispered, then Thor _would_ return for his brother. She'd given him a chaste, albeit breath-stealing, kiss goodbye, ignoring the fact that she could feel Loki watching them, and then, finally, returned to her trailer.

She did linger on the porch for a moment or three or ten, until she couldn't delay greeting her guest any longer. With a deep breath and a final tug on the hem of her t-shirt, she'd stepped inside.

The screen door had creaked open, the hydraulics making it slam shut behind her. Loki had been facing away from her and he'd stiffened immediately. He didn't make a move to turn, so she froze too, willing him to face her. To speak. She'd had no clue what to say.

_Hello, welcome to earth, the planet you attempted to crush less than a year ago. How'd that go over for ya?_

Like she'd said; awkward.

She cleared her throat and headed for her tiny kitchen. "You hungry?" she asked out of habitual courtesy. "Cuz I'm starving. I don't know about you, but waking up at five in the morning because your..." well, she couldn't exactly call Thor a boyfriend, now could she? "Anyway, it's early and I'm hungry, and I don't have much but I could make waffles."

And now she was rambling, so Jane squeezed her lips together as she pulled the box of Eggo's out of the freezer, grabbing the butter and syrup from the fridge. She tossed the whole lot on the counter. Loki said nothing behind her, but she could hear him moving around, touching things. _Her_ things. She tried not to ponder what he must think of her meager furnishings. She popped two waffles into the toaster and pushed down the lever before turning to face her guest.

"You eating or not?"

"Decidedly not," he replied, holding a snow globe of Lady Liberty between two long fingers. He sniffed it, then shook it, sneering as white flakes swirled inside. He set it back down on her heavily weighed down bookshelf and took one step backward, clasping his hands behind his back.

"Suit yourself," Jane said with a shrug, pouring her second cup of coffee. "That's your room over there," she pointed to her left, indicating Darcy's old room. Now that her (sometimes) intern had moved in with intern numero dos, what's his face, she had the spare room. "It's not much, but..." she waved a hand, "you can put your stuff in there."

He raised an eyebrow at her, then looked down at himself, leaving it up to her to put two and two together.

"You're kidding me." Thor hadn't mentioned she needed to provide clothes for his wayward, trouble-making brother.

"I've no need for... stuff."

"It's mid-July."

"Hooray."

And their conversations were _oh_, so engaging.

She made a face and waved her hands, indicating the... costume he was wearing. (Because what else could she call it?) Oh, sure, he'd foregone the armor this time, but the leathers and cape, complete with over-the-knee boots were perfectly in place. "You are aware that this is the desert, right?"

"I am."

Jane snorted. "And you're just going to wear _that_ the whole time?" He shrugged and turned his back on her as she started dressing her waffles. "It's, like, a hundred degrees out there on a cool day."

"This body is not as temperamental or as weak as yours." Boy, that face. Smug and supremely arrogant in its certainty.

"Except," Jane felt only a little pleasure (okay, a lot) in reminding, "you're just as weak and temperamental as I am right now, aren't you." Perhaps even more so. Well, the temperamental part, at least.

"Hardly," he half growled.

"Still," she pressed, not really wanting to argue that point. Even stripped of his magic as he was, his essential and elemental makeup was probably different, at least somewhat, than hers. She would never make the mistake of thinking Loki weak. "Aren't you really from Jötunheim? The realm of ice and giants? I imagine the New Mexican desert feels a bit like Hel to you."

Since she'd practically been shoveling waffles into her face, even while talking, Jane hadn't noticed the expression on Loki's face growing colder and harder. As she lifted her eyes to meet his, expecting an answer to her truly logical line of questioning, she took and involuntary step back, bumping into her kitchen counter.

_Oh, goody._ She'd managed to piss off the hair-trigger god in record time.

**To Be Continued...**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks again for your interest in this little tale. I hope I can keep up with these two. They're gonna be trouble, I can already tell. **

**I've taken some creative license here with Jane's past. Honestly, I don't remember much of it having been given away in the movies, but feel free to disregard anything that contradicts what I've written below. **

**Disclaimer: They aren't mine, I promise. I'm not profiting in any way from this.**

**/*/*/*/**

It was nearly four days later before Loki spoke with her again. Which, Jane supposed, was just as well.

Eric had stopped by the following afternoon to visit before flying out to Stockholm for a seminar at the university. Considering their past involvement, and the fact that Erik had only recently begun to wear pants again, Jane thought it best that Loki's presence remain a secret, even from her most-trusted confidant and mentor.

Aside from that, everyone _did_ suspect Loki was dead, and Thor had been pretty adamant about the truth remaining hidden. Not to mention Erik's relief on hearing of the once mind-controlling gods death had been a palpable thing, even to Jane, and she couldn't bear to break his heart.

"Hey, Erik," she imagined herself saying, "you know how Thor said Loki was dead? Yeah, well, he's not and now he's living here with me. Oh, don't worry, Thor says he's harmless. Want to have dinner with us?" Uh-huh, that would go over brilliantly.

So, Loki staying holed up in his (hopefully) temporary room for days on end, doing god only knows what, was probably a blessing in disguise.

Oh, sure, at first Jane'd been pissed. She was being hospitable, dammit, taking him into her home, agreeing to provide food and shelter (and apparently clothes) for the megalomaniac. How was she supposed to know he was such a sensitive little baby when it came to his heritage?

He'd declared it proudly, at least to her ears, to Malekith with all that, "I am Loki of Jötunheim," babble. Sure, it'd been, in part, an act, but that exclamation had seemed authentic. Jane had genuinely thought he'd come to terms with it. She couldn't exactly go pussyfooting around him if she were to be living with him for who knows how long. Her tongue was too loose for that, and she'd always thought her ability to be so candid, in almost all situations, was one of her better traits.

By the third day, though, she thought maybe it wasn't always such a good thing.

She'd been insensitive and felt horribly guilty. Forgetting the fact that she could hardly fathom it, she tried to imagine how she _would_ feel in Loki's shoes. The truth of his ancestry had been kept from him for thousands of years. _Thousands._ His own family had kept this huge secret from him for over a millennia. (Not that it granted him license to try and take over another _world_ as an act of rebellion against the cold, hard facts, and Jane was far from ready to pardon him of that.) It really was unthinkable, forget their motivation behind it; (which Jane hadn't an inkling to) it was too long to hold onto the truth.

So, yeah, she could kind of understand how what she'd said may have struck a nerve. Perhaps it was her own broken past that had resulted in her being far less sensitive to others feelings than the normal person. It wasn't that she was completely apathetic, mind you, but rather it sometimes took her a little while to analyze the reason behind certain feelings, even when it came to herself and especially when it came to others.

She'd had her father, whose obsession with the stars rivaled her own. Then there was her mother, who she could hardly remember, but whose passion had laid with medicine. It had ultimately been her downfall; on one of her many trips away from home (and Jane, come to think of it) to cure some rare disease, she'd contracted the very same illness whose remedy she'd so passionately, compulsively sought.

And then her father had died a few, short years later and she'd been left with Erik as her only means to a parental figure. Not to sell Erik short, by any means, Jane knew that he loved her in his own way, but he was hardly the sentimental sort. In fact, she was quite certain the very thought of coddling someone's insecurities made Erik shudder in horror.

Therefore, Jane figured she was safe in assuming perhaps she didn't have the best hereditary recipe for creating the most empathetic of personalities. She'd inherited their passion, their stubbornness, their obsessive personalities, their analytical mind, and their ability to go without sleep for days upon days while in the midst of a scientific breakthrough. She had other short-comings though, and Loki, deserving or not, had been victim to one of many.

So, that night she spent a whole hour preparing dinner as a pitiful attempt at an apology. Fat lot of good it did, as her perfectly cooked pot roast, complete with carrots, potatoes and asparagus, went mostly uneaten and was stored as leftovers in her twelve-year-old refrigerator.

Jane had knocked and knocked on his door, spewing an embarrassing number of apologies, excuses and explanations to atone for being so inconsiderate. She hardly even remembered what all she'd said. He'd ignored her so thoroughly she hadn't even heard him stir in his room, and with walls as thin as hers, that was nigh impossible.

She was determined to get through to Loki though, and awoke early the next morning to try again with breakfast. No one could resist the scent of bacon. No one. Except when she went to start the coffee, her brewing pot was nowhere in sight.

She narrowed her eyes as she stared at the empty spot on the counter. He wouldn't dare, would he? Was he petty enough to hide her precious coffee pot in attempt to get back at her for her callous statement, logical though it was?

Seriously?

She shook her head and clenched her hands into fists. Her steps were precise and loud as she made her way to Loki's room.

Of all the juvenile, twisted, _evil_ things to do... She couldn't _believe_ he'd take her coffee pot away.

This meant war.

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
